Out of Control

  Mark 3:20-35

 Rev. Monte Marshall

 

Ashley Miller was a young woman “out of control”—at least that’s how her father saw it.  In her father’s eyes, she had “lost her mind,” to borrow a phrase from this morning’s scripture reading.  In her father’s view, Ashley was “stirring up trouble” by moving beyond what he considered to be socially acceptable behavior.  So Ashley’s father decided to extract a cost from his daughter.  The price he demanded became clear to Ashley in 2012 during a phone conversation with her step-mother.  This is how Ashley tells the story:    

“I’m sorry to be doing this over the phone, your father has forbidden me from seeing you in person.  I’m sorry, he just cannot support your lifestyle anymore, he will not be speaking to you again, he asked me to tell you.

“That was my stepmother, the day after Thanksgiving, the day after she discovered I was dating someone.  Someone who was not white.  Someone who was black…..

“Your father wants you to know that he still loves you.  But you’ve gone too far.

“She won’t say the reason.  She won’t acknowledge that it is a race thing.

“Your lifestyle is just not OK with him, he has bent as much as he will bend.  He has bent so much and you haven’t bent at all.

I insist on clarification, “My lifestyle?”

“Yes.  Your father is an old Southern man, he was raised like that, he was raised to believe that races just don’t mix.  It was the final straw.  He loves you, he just doesn’t like you.

“So, this is entirely because he’s black?”

“I told him it didn’t matter to you….We’re not telling you what to do.  If you love him, you should be with him.  But I’m going to stand by my husband, just as you some day, if you get married, will stand by yours.  We both love you, he’s just not going to talk to you.  Maybe, in a long time, he might change his mind, but I don’t think so. I think it was too much.”[1]

Families!  Families are such a blessing, and sometimes, as Ashley Miller discovered—such a curse!  Biblical scholar, Walter Wink, makes an interesting observation:  “The first person who attempts to squelch an act of courage is often a family member.”[2]  How true. 

So now we turn to Jesus.  In this morning’s text, Jesus is out of control—at least that’s how it appears to his family, and to the religious scholars from Jerusalem who have come to Galilee to undermine his ministry.  Jesus has been out of control since the first chapter of Mark’s gospel.  He’s been stirring up trouble in Galilee by launching an assault on the dominant social order.  Commentator Chad Meyers calls his actions “theatrical civil disobedience.”[3] 

Mark has already told us that Jesus has been proclaiming the reign of God.  He’s also been subverting the authority of the ruling religious elites by challenging Sabbath rules and the well-established traditions concerning the proper administration of forgiveness, or what Meyers calls, “the debt code.”[4] 

Mark has also emphasized the growing popularity of Jesus.  He’s been attracting crowds by healing people, casting out demons, welcoming social outcasts, and teaching as one who has authority. 

And Mark has highlighted a mounting threat to Jesus caused by his prophetic rabble-rousing.  A political conspiracy has been formed against him.  The Pharisees and Herodians, two factions usually at odds with one another, have managed to combine forces to pursue a common goal—the destruction of Jesus.    

As one commentator puts it:  “All this ‘in-breaking kingdom stuff…is getting out of control.”[5]

Mark indicates that Jesus’ family has heard what’s going on so when Jesus arrives at home, accompanied by so many people that he and his disciples can’t even break bread together, the family shows up.  And they’ve concluded that Jesus is out of control.  The text says that they think he’s lost his mind.  So they want to control him—to silence him—to change him—to protect him—to protect themselves.  The text says that they want to “take charge of him.”  When this language is used elsewhere in Mark, it refers to “political detainment.”[6] 

Families!  They are such a blessing—and sometimes—as Jesus discovers in Mark’s story—such a curse!  In fact, by the end of this morning’s text, Jesus’ mother and brothers are on the outside of the house, sending in a message asking for him, but Jesus refuses to respond to them.  Instead, he responds to the crowd:  “’Who is my mother?  Who is my family?’  And looking around at everyone there, Jesus [says], ‘This is my family!  Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my sister, my brother, my mother.” 

Jesus here strikes at the heart of the dominant social order.  And this is a big deal because, as one commentator notes:  “In antiquity, the extended family meant everything.  It not only was the source of one’s status in the community but also functioned as the primary economic, religious, educational and social network.” [7]

So what does Jesus do?  He reconstitutes the family.  In this new configuration, family is no longer limited to biology, or kinship, or ethnicity, or geography, because in the reign of God, family includes everyone who does the will of God.  And frankly, all of us in this place are supposed to make up this reconstituted family. The question is:  Are we “out of control” enough to be who we are? 

And now we come to another part of the text—the story of the religious scholars from Jerusalem.  Mark inserts this story in the middle of his narrative about Jesus and his family:  The various parts of the story are connected in several ways, but most importantly, each part of the story has at its center, Jesus—this one deemed out of control.

So when the religious scholars show up, what do they do?  Well, they attack Jesus for being out of control.  And to make their point, they use mythic images from the ancient world that personify evil:  “He is possessed by Beelzebub,” they say.  “He casts out demons through the ruler of demons,” they say.  Both of these euphemisms refer to Satan.  So for these religious scholars, Jesus is not just “out of his mind,” he’s possessed by Satan!  And their logic is simple:  “We’re on God’s side, therefore Jesus—the one who challenges us—must be on Satan’s side.”

Modern day anthropologists call this “deviance labeling.”[8]  In our time, we practice deviance labeling when we refer to people as deranged, crazy, a communist, a radical, a wimp, a fag, a heretic.  For example, during the 1970s and 1980s, when the country of Brazil was plagued by oppressive poverty and in the grip of a brutal military dictatorship, Roman Catholic bishop, Dom Helder Camara was a champion for justice and an opponent of the regime.  He once famously said:  “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint.  When I asked ‘Why are they poor?’ they called me a communist.”[9]

This is deviance labeling.  It is a potent social weapon that uses shame to “seriously undermine a person’s place and role in the community.”[10]  And in the religious world of Jesus, there was no more damaging label than to be called “possessed by Beelzebub.”

But Jesus turns the tables on his opponents.  He uses their words against them.  As Chad Meyers puts it, Jesus short-circuits the self-serving ideological dualism of the religious scholars “by unmasking its contradictions and collapsing in upon itself.”[11]  Jesus says:  “How can Satan cast out Satan?  If a realm is torn by civil strife, it cannot last.  If a household is divided according to loyalties, it will not survive.  Similarly, if Satan has suffered mutiny in the ranks and is torn by dissension, the Devil is finished and cannot endure.”

Jesus then uses what Meyers calls “a thinly veiled political parable”[12] to associate his mission with an act of criminal breaking and entering:  “No attacker can enter a stronghold unless the defender is first put under restraint.  Only then can the attacker plunder the stronghold.”  

The implication of this parable is that Jesus is the attacker.  Jesus intends to enter the stronghold of those in positions of power and privilege, bind them up, and then plunder the stronghold.  As Meyers points out, this would fulfill a promise God made through the prophet Isaiah “to liberate ‘the prey of the strong and rescue the captives of the tyrants.’”[13]

And then Jesus speaks this word:  “The truth is, every sin and all the blasphemy the people utter will be forgiven, but those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness.  They are guilty of eternal sin.”  The text then says:  “Jesus spoke all this because they said, ‘He is possessed by an unclean spirit.’” 

So what is this “eternal sin?”  Most scholars believe that this sin is revealed when people display a consistent pattern of associating the works of God with evil.  Chad Meyers puts it this way:  “To be captive to the way things are, to resist criticism and change, to brutally suppress efforts at humanization—is to be bypassed by the grace of God.”[14] 

Is this sort of sin unforgiveable?  This is Mark’s point of view in this text.  However, there are other points of view in the New Testament.  Remember, for example, what Jesus prays from the cross in Luke’s gospel:  “Abba, forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing.”  Now if crucifying Jesus doesn’t qualify as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then I don’t know what does.  And yet, Jesus seeks forgiveness for these “blasphemers” and it’s because they don’t have clue that they’re doing anything wrong!

So here’s the question:  What does all of this mean for us?  I, for one, find great hope in the fact that Jesus was deemed “out of control” and yet was not deterred from his path by the resistance of his family and the religious elites of his day.  I find great hope in the fact that Ashley Miller was deemed “out of control” and yet was not deterred from pursuing a loving relationship with a black man by the resistance of her family.  I find hope in the fact that Bishop Dom Helder Camara of Brazil was deemed “out of control” and yet was not deterred from pursuing peace with justice by the resistance of those who labeled him “a communist.” 

I like the way this poem puts it: 

Here’s to the crazy ones.  The misfits.  The rebels.

The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.  They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough

to think they can change the world,

are the ones who do.”[15]

 

Thanks be to God for an out of control Jesus!  And dear God, may those of us who follow Jesus in this reconstituted family be as out of control as he was!  Amen.